Do We Really Need to Contextualize?

A video by William Taylor of St Helen's Bishopsgate seems to have stirred up some conversation on social media. Here are some of my thoughts on it.

Taylor argues that there is far too much emphasis on contextualization in preaching. The idea, commonly shared, that we should preach the gospel with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, Taylor says, is profoundly unhelpful. We need rather to preach with the Bible in both hands and as we do so it will be shown to be truly relevant to the people to whom we are speaking. We need, he suggests, to be beavers in regard to the Word but magpies in regard to the culture: we beaver away at understanding the text and that makes us aware of the shiny objects (the cultural phenomena) that magpies are supposed to be fond of.

I have deep respect for Taylor and am very thankful for his ministry. I must say, though, that I cannot agree with him. I appreciate the point that we can make contextualization a science such that people are intimidated to even try to communicate the message for fear of not connecting properly. What he says is clearly true when it comes to working in one's own society (if one acknowledges the variations within it). The big issue comes as we try to move out of our society and encounter people from a very different background. And the greater the cultural mileage, the bigger the issue becomes. So when we attempt to communicate a message across a cultural gap we need to be aware of how that gap affects the communication. And that works two ways - the way we understand the receptor culture and the way the people of the receptor culture understand us.

It is only by working hard to understand the receptor culture that we can appreciate the way our message should be articulated. Then we will hopefully avoid the kind of faux pas that every missionary would rather forget and that can have such a negative impact on the way our message is received. If they reject my message because they understand the significance of the cross that is their shame and their folly. But if they reject it because I didn't do my homework carefully enough, well, that is my shame and folly. Not that we all need PhDs in understanding the culture. But if none of us grapples with it, who will tell us when we are failing? The Apostle Paul 'looked carefully' at the Athenians' objects of worship (Acts 17:23). That gave him the way in to his audience. If Paul, who grew up in that region, felt the need for deliberate, conscientious cultural observation, then surely we should too. I have written before about Reformed cross-cultural naivete. My fear is that Taylor's stance is an example of just that problem.

Why Ethnography is Vital in Missions

I just came across this quote that I saved some time ago. It is by two German architects who were working on the restoration of Nepalese monuments:

Deficient planning is all too frequent.  Western experts usually have but a perfunctory acquaintance with the cultural presuppositions of the countries they are working in.  Their counterparts from the developing countries, often western-trained, sometimes do not wish to appear traditionalist; equating tradition with backwardness, they too readily yield to suggestions which set their own cultural heritage at nought.

 The only escape from this dilemma is to present the axioms of a culture in a comprehensible way, and to work out some of the implications these axioms will have to the community that shares them.  An attempt to disentangle an incomprehensible conglomeration, and to show the system behind a mass of seemingly disjunct facts, might help experts to realise that very good reasons usually lie behind what are, apparently, queer and peculiar patterns of behaviour. (Gutschow, N., and B. Kölver 1975.  Ordered Space, Concepts and Functions in a Town in Nepal.  Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, p. 6)

Gutschow and Kölver are concerned that Western experts involved in heritage restoration don't give themselves to really understanding the culture of the community that hosts them. Their local partners, furthermore, are concerned that they will appear to be uneducated and ignorant if they challenge the experts. And so the sensitive restoration of a national treasure ends up looking like a dog's breakfast.

It reminds me of so much that goes on as mission. Dedicated foreigners who have degrees in theology and mission partner with local believers (who, by virtue of their relationship to the foreigners are marginal to their community) to plant churches in an unreached community. Six months language study with minimal acquisition of local cultural understanding is followed by action on a grand scheme, drawn up in a foreign clime, funded by generous supporters, and approved by the local workers (who are they to challenge the latest ideas?). 'Queer and peculiar patterns of behaviour' are dismissed as false religion. The opportunity for careful contextualization is foreclosed.